Review written by Chloe Fouilloux, Eva Ringler, and Bibiana Rojas

Animals can sometimes be downright bizarre. We, as biologists, still don’t quite understand why animals behave the way they do, but every day we get a little bit closer to a more complete reality of the natural world that we observe. One of the most fascinating behaviors I have ever watched is that of cannibalism, where an individual kills and then consumes part or whole of another individual of the same species. And although it’s weird, it’s not rare at all; in fact, it’s present in every animal clade alive on Earth today! Mothers eat their babies, fathers feed their babies to other babies, babies eat each other. . . the carnage is truly ubiquitous.

Feel free to download our quick guide to cannibalism– but watch out! It’s a slippery slope to becoming fascinated with this deliciously intriguing behavior 😉